"Hag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... country. I am utterly unable upon this occasion either to do my duty to the people or to express myself with that deep solemnity which I feel in rising to resist this untoward, this unholy, this unconstitutional proceeding. Indeed, I know not why the ghost of impeachment hag appeared here in a new form. We have attempted to lay it hitherto, and we have successfully laid it. upon the floor of this House. But a minority of the party on the other side, forcing its influence and its power upon a majority of a committee ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... they parted, "you're looking an absolute wreck. Everyone can see it. Three months more of the same pace would make you a hag." ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... with whom Meriem came in contact was, almost without exception, either indifferent to her or cruel. There was, for example, the old black hag who looked after her, Mabunu—toothless, filthy and ill tempered. She lost no opportunity to cuff the little girl, or even inflict minor tortures upon her, such as pinching, or, as she had twice done, searing the tender flesh with hot coals. And there was The Sheik, her father. She ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... lend me a pair of scales? I am a woman newly come from Persia, have brought five hundred pieces of gold with me, and would know if they will hold out according to your weights. Good woman, answered the old hag, you could not have applied to a more proper person. Follow me; I will bring you to my son, who changes money, and will weigh them himself, to save you the trouble. Let us make haste, for fear he be gone to his shop. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... assaulted. He was not far engaged in the Waste, which was then, and is now, traversed only by such routes as are described in the text, when two or three fellows, disguised and variously armed, started from a moss-hag, while, by a glance behind him (for, marching, as the Spaniard says, with his beard on his shoulder, he reconnoitred in every direction), Charlie instantly saw retreat was impossible, as other two stout men appeared behind him at some distance. The Borderer lost not a moment in taking his resolution, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... "There's a hag about fit to knock down a policeman," he rejoined, with a feigned indignation fine to see. "Now be sensible, Anna, and let's get out. Are we babes and sucklings or what? Don't make a scene about it. I don't want you to come ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... the subscription list of THE WATCHMAN; yet more than half convinced, that prudence dictated the abandonment of the scheme. But for this very reason I persevered in it; for I was at that period of my life so completely hag-ridden by the fear of being influenced by selfish motives, that to know a mode of conduct to be the dictate of prudence was a sort of presumptive proof to my feelings, that the contrary was the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Bottom was the first of Shakespeare's masterpieces in characterisation, Caliban was the last: and what a world of bitterness and horror lies between them! The charming coxcomb it is easy to know and love; but the 'freckled whelp hag-born' moves us mysteriously to pity and to terror, eluding us for ever in fearful allegories, and strange coils of disgusted laughter and phantasmagorical tears. The physical vigour of the presentment is often so remorseless as to shock us. ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... came to me that she must have been hidden in the ruin, and have heard me when I called the name of Ysidria, and I mentally cursed the old hag. Then I thought of the whispered sentence, and of the three syllabled echo; and knew they ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... the owner of such wealth? But I will make you feel my power, though it suits my honour to hide the source of it. I will be an incubus to your city, since you have rejected me as a magistrate. Like the night mare, I will hag ride ye, yet remain invisible myself. This miserable Ramorny, too, he who, in losing his hand, has, like a poor artisan, lost the only valuable part of his frame, he heaps insulting language on me, as if anything which he can say had power to chafe a constant mind like ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... not prepared for the scene that met us when we drove into the porte cochere. The place seemed deserted, not a servant was to be seen but one old wrinkled hag, who hobbled up to the door saying something in Dutch that made Madame van Hunker clasp her hands and exclaim: 'All fled! Oh, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... war been more skilfully pursued among men than it is pursued by these beasts, not even in our present century. They have their advanced out-posts, their sentinels and spies; their ambuscades, their expedients, and a thousand other inventions of the pernicious and accursed science Warfare, a hag born, herself, of Styx,[10] but giving birth ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... in her eyes as I held her hand and said, 'Baby shall be taken care of.' She tried to thank me, and died soon after quite peacefully. Well, I went today and hunted up the poor little wretch. Found her in a miserable place, left in the care of an old hag who had shut her up alone to keep her out of the way, and there this mite was, huddled in a corner, crying 'Marmar, marmar!' fit to touch a heart of stone. I blew up at the woman and took the baby ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... of his demise he had ten going pleas before the Session, eight of them oppressive. And the same doom extended even to his agents; his grieve, that had been his right hand in many a left-hand business, being cast from his horse one night and drowned in a peat-hag on the Kye-skairs; and his very doer (although lawyers have long spoons) surviving him not long, and dying on a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... something rapidly in French—too rapidly for me to follow, and then motioned us to sit down as he placed two wooden chairs for us. Mother sank down, almost too wearied to return the greeting which the old hag by the ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... uglier follow the night-hag, when, call'd In secret, riding through the air she comes, Lured by the smell of infant blood, to dance With Lapland witches, while the laboring ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... suddenly to enter the grove of twisted, hag-like cedars which stood upon the mesa back of the ranch-house. "By-and-by I will look like this," she dreamed, and laid her hand on one that was ragged and gnarled and gray with a thousand years of sun and wind, and even as she stood there, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... just going to cut up this peerless robe into strips. He bought it of an old crone, who must doubtless have worn it on gala days when she went to Lucifer's drawing-room on the Blocksberg. Look at this scarlet bodice, with its gold tassels and fringe, at this cap besmeared with the last fee the hag got from Beelzebub or his imps: it will give me a right worshipful air. To match such jewels, there is this green velvet petticoat with its saffron-coloured trimming, and this mask would melt even ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... before I entered, had I but remembered that she knew my step on the smooth walk, fell it ever so lightly, and would have met me—but for death! And there too sat a black she-devil, stuffing my infant's mouth with their vile food. I believe the hag thought I was mad; for I caught the child in my arms, held it to my heart while I bent over my wife's body, and kissed her cold, unreturning—for the first time unreturning—lips; then flung myself out of the accursed place,—ran with ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... great scholar must be right; so lead the poor creatures to their death! Do you see that group of children and half- grown girls, and, among them, an old, hag-like Indian woman, Tituba by me? Those are the Afflicted Ones. Behold, at this very instant, a proof of Satan's power and malice! Mercy Parris, the minister's daughter, has been smitten by a flash ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... daughter, and has sworn, to wed the avenger of her father's death, but each lover is unconscious of the other's name. The gipsy Sizyga alone, who had been betrayed in her youth by Frauenlob's father, recognizes the young knight, and though he has only just saved the old hag from the people's fury, she wishes to avenge her wrongs on him. To this end she betrays the secret of Frauenlob's birth to Hildegund's suitor, Servazio di Bologna, who is highly jealous of this new rival, and determines to lay hands on him, as soon as he enters the gates of Maintz.—Frauenlob, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... "the Border," the picture that rises to mind is usually one of hill and dale, of peat-hag and heathery knoll, of brimming burns that tumble headlong to meet the embrace of rivers hurrying to their rest in the great ocean. One sees in imagination the solemn, round-shouldered hills standing out grim in the thin spring sunshine, their black sides slashed and lined with snow; later, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... head, Don Enrique throw up his hands and fall with his face in the dust. Charles Gould noted particularly the big patriarchal head of that witness in the rear of the other servants. But he was surprised to see a shrivelled old hag or two, of whose existence within the walls of his house he had not been aware. They must have been the mothers, or even the grandmothers of some of his people. There were a few children, too, more or less naked, crying and clinging ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... "You accursed hag," said the baronet, whose vexation at meeting her was for the moment beyond any superstitious impression which he felt, "what brought you here? What devil sent you across my path now? Who are you, or what are you, for you look like ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... opinions one thing struck him: the pedantic manner of most of the critics. Who was it said that the French were amiable fantastics who believed in nothing? Those whom Christophe saw were more hag-ridden by the science of music—even when they knew nothing—than all the critics on the other side ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... down My limbs, as they were public roads, impart A singularly interesting chill. The circumstance and passion of the time, The cast and manner of the place—the spirit Of this confederate environment, Command the rights we come to celebrate Obedient to the Inspired Hag— The seventh daughter of the seventh daughter, Who rules all destinies from Minna street, A dollar a destiny. Here at this grave, Which for my purposes thou, Jack of Spades— (To Grimghast) Corrupter than the thing ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... youth's contours? Ah, Madame! wise as you were, even you knew weakness. Never had I pitied Madame before, but my heart softened towards her, when she turned darkly from the glass. A calamity had come upon her. That hag Disappointment was greeting her with a grisly "All-hail," and her soul rejected ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the comfortable announcement of a Tory morning paper,—the very incarnation of spiteful imbecility. Such is the self-complacency of the old Tory hag, that in her wildest moments would bite excessively,—if she only had teeth. She has, however, in the very simplicity of her smirking, let out the whole secret—has, in the sweet serenity of her satisfaction, revealed the selfishness, the wickedness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... supplied the place, and kept up the intoxicating dream, the fever and the madness of his early impressions. Liberty (the philosopher's and the poet's bride) had fallen a victim, meanwhile, to the murderous practices of the hag, Legitimacy. Proscribed by court-hirelings, too romantic for the herd of vulgar politicians, our enthusiast stood at bay, and at last turned on the pivot of a subtle casuistry to the unclean side: but his discursive reason would not let ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... he himself was going to appear. The piece was called A Spendthrift, and I saw it without suffering for it. There was a young, flighty man in it who used to throw gold coins out of the window, and there was an ugly old hag, and a young, beautiful girl as well. I sat and kept a sharp lookout for when my master should come on, but I was disappointed; there was no ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... immediately after the arrival of a ship, are very poorly provided, while the packs, for few have attained to the dignity of tin boxes, brought about by the hawkers, contain the most wretched assortment of goods imaginable. The moment, therefore, that the cargo of a vessel hag been purchased by the retail dealers, all that is really elegant or fashionable is eagerly purchased, and the rejected articles, even should they be equally excellent, when once consigned to the dingy ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... deliberate dragging down of the conception until it becomes symbolical of the lowest and most venal form of love? In the Naples version Amor, a fairly-fashioned divinity of more or less classic aspect, presides; in the Madrid and subsequent interpretations of the legend, a grasping hag, the attendant of Danae, holds out a cloth, eager to catch her share of the golden rain. In the St. Petersburg version, which cannot be accounted more than an atelier piece, there is, with some slight yet appreciable variations, a substantial agreement with the Madrid picture. Of this ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... sea, his company being nine. Then he went upon an island, where he saw a withered old woman on her hands at the door of a house. "Whence is the hag?" asked Patrick; "great is her infirmity." A young man answered, and said: "She is a descendant of mine," said the young man; "if you could see the mother of this girl, O cleric! she is more infirm ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... only relates that Odin changed himself into another form, but he adds that by his spells he turned his enemies into boars. In precisely the same manner does a hag, Ljot, in the Vatnsdla Saga, say that she could have turned Thorsteinn and Jkull into boars to run about with the wild beasts (c. xxvi.); and the expression vera at gjalti, or at gjltum, to become a boar, is frequently met with in ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... woman hobbled toward Thor, her eyes gleaming under her falling fringes of gray hair. Thor stood, unable to move as the hag came toward him. She laid her hands upon his arms. Her feet began to trip at his. He tried to cast her from him. Then he found that her feet and her hands were as strong against his as bands and stakes ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... in their rebuked and quiet manner, though one who knew the habits of the people might have detected that everything was not going on in its usual train. Most of the young women seemed to be light-hearted enough; but one old hag was seated apart with a watchful soured aspect, which the hunter at once knew betokened that some duty of an unpleasant character had been assigned her by the chiefs. What that duty was, he had no means of knowing; but he felt satisfied it ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... small, meagre, raggged old woman emerged swiftly from the lane, accompanied by one younger and stouter and less nimble of foot, her temporary neighbour, Mrs. Gatheremup. Mrs. Duggan seemed to bear out Joe's character of her; for now, like Spenser's hag Occasion, "ever as she went her tongue did walk," and the path it took was not one of peace. "Maybe, after this happenin', some she could name might have the wit to believe what other people tould thim, who knew bitter than to ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... he was, was being very roughly handled by the cooks and scullions of the establishment; one aimed a spitful of hissing-hot guts at his eyes; another grabbed a two-tined fork in the pantry and put himself on guard. But worst of all, a blear-eyed old hag, girded round with a filthy apron, and wearing wooden clogs which were not mates, dragged in an immense dog on a chain, and "sicked" him upon Eumolpus, but he beat off all attacks ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... the poorer quarters of the town. Regardless of the weather one of these bedrabbled creatures stations herself just outside the door of a pub. Along comes a mother with a thirst and a child. Surrendering her offspring to the temporary care of the hag the mother goes within and has her refreshment at the bar. When, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, she comes forth to reclaim the youngster she gives the other woman a ha'penny for her trouble, and eventually the other woman harvests enough ha'penny ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... confused. reid, red. reid-heidit, red-headed. richt, right. rife, common, widespread. riggin', ridge of a house. rivin', tearing. rizzon, reason. roondit, rounded. roup, sale. row, roll, wrap up. rout, roar. rubbin'-post, post for cattle to rub against. ruggit, pulled roughly. runt, an old hag. ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... at the interior of the tavern, however, told us that all our hopes were in vain. Legros, the landlord, was even then turning the blouse over and over, whilst his hideous hag of a wife was talking to the police inspector, who was showing her the paper that announced the offer of two thousand five hundred francs for the recovery of a valuable bracelet, the property of ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... any kind even under favorable circumstances is a great wear and tear on the disposition. Commuters who go in and out of town every day are a notoriously hag-ridden lot, and the men who go on the road are not much better. But there is one enormous difference. It is the privilege of the commuter to growl as much as he likes about the discomforts of the road and the stupidity of the men who make up the time tables, but travelling ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... they were with their mother. When I saw the boy at Venice, who perfectly recognized me, his only garb was a wretched yellow cotton gown. His little feet, on which I had admired the little shiny boots, were WITHOUT SHOE OR STOCKING. He looked at me, ran to an old hag of a woman, who seized his hand; and with her he disappeared down one of the thronged ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... healing aid My friendship proffers, now shalt thou behold The allotted length of life." He stamp'd the earth, And dragging a huge coffin as his car, Two GOULS came on, of form more fearful-foul Than ever palsied in her wildest dream Hag-ridden Superstition. Then DESPAIR Seiz'd on the Maid whose curdling blood stood still. And placed her in the seat; and on they pass'd Adown the deep descent. A meteor light Shot from the Daemons, as they dragg'd along The unwelcome ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... ills which flesh is heir to." It was particularly vexatious to discover, when too late, that our sympathies and charities had been expended upon such graceless vagabonds as the "Barrington beggars." An old withered hag, known by the appellation of Hopping Pat,—the wise woman of her tribe,—was in the habit of visiting us, with her hopeful grandson, who had "a gift for preaching" as well as for many other things not exactly compatible with holy orders. He sometimes brought with him a tame ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... brutal indifference. The Huron woman, worn out with arduous toil, rapidly lost the brightness of her youth. At an age when the women of a higher culture are still at the height of their charm and attractiveness the woman of the Hurons had degenerated into a shrivelled hag, horrible to the eye and often despicable in character. The inborn gentleness of womanhood had been driven from her breast by ill-treatment. Not even the cruelest of the warriors surpassed the unhallowed fiendishness of the withered squaw in preparing the torments of the stake and in ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock
... but did not reach it. An old hag was seated in a chair beside one of the log cabins. From the color of her skin the girl judged her to be an Indian squaw. She wore moccasins, a dirty and shapeless one-piece dress, and a big sunbonnet, in which her ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... have proved clumsy and abashed, but none could have passed through the test she offered with both denial and calm.... She wanted the interest of Bedient, because the other women fancied him; she wanted to show them and "that hag, Kate Wilkes," what a man desires in a woman; and now a third reason evolved. Bedient had proved to her something of a challenging sensation. He was altogether too calm to be inexperienced. Every instinct had unerringly ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... Laughingly, Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys rested her finger on the keys and looked around. These stolid Trojans had caught fire. There was the little Doctor purple all above his stock; there was the Vicar with inflated cheeks and a hag-ridden stare; there was Mr. Moggridge snapping his fingers and almost capering; there was Miss Limpenny with her under-jaw dropped and her eyes agape. They were ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the room above came the soft, racking, petitionary music of a violin. The hag, music, bewitches some of the noblest. The daws may peck upon one's sleeve without injury, but whoever wears his heart upon his tympanum gets it not far from ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... I rubbed, when there gazed up at me A hag, that had slowly emerged from under my hands there, Pointing the slanted finger towards a bosom Eaten away of a rot from the lusts of a lifetime . . . - I could have ended myself in heart-shook horror. Stunned I sat till roused by a clear-voiced bell-chime, ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... furnished the choicest modern specimens of this style of oratory. Mr. O'Flanagan, in his 'Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland', tells us that a member for Galway, attacking an opponent when he knew that his sister was present during the debate, denounced the whole family—"from the toothless old hag that is now grinning in the gallery, to the white-livered scoundrel that is shivering on ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... HAR. Mad hag! Have you no touch of feeling, that your eyes Gloat on a sight so horrible as this? Help me—take hold. What, will not one assist To pull the torturing ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... fond of the sister," remarked the Comandante; "and mother too, for that matter, hag as she is! Still, my dear Roblado, a man likes his own life better than anything else. Near is the shirt, etcetera. He knows well that to stay here is to get into our hands some time or other, and ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... on Eddo, in his fury beating the bole on which he sat, "thou thinkest to protect that old hag, Nya, because her blood runs in thee. But, fool, it is in vain, for her tree is down, her tree is down, and as its leaves wither, and its sap dries up, so must she wither and her blood dry up until she dies, she who thought to live on ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... in a rage, "this cursed Inglez still lives, and here am I posing before him like an old hag." ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... "Witch! Hag! Mother of malefactors! Let me alone—I am asleep. Are you trying to tear my sleeve off with your greasy claws? Nobody is knocking; you probably hear the wine thumping in ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... Kraken sleeps, Where fixed the icy mountains high Glimmer to the twilight sky; Where, six lingering months to last, 20 The night has closed, the day is past, Father, lo, I come, I come: I have heard the wizard's drum, And the withered Lapland hag, Seal, with muttered spell, her bag: O'er mountains white, and forests sere, I flew, and with ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... bearing that day's date. One glance at it told Laura what it meant. The bride in the court below was shedding tears: the bridegroom was lighting his pipe and consoling her; women were chattering, men shrugging. Some said they had seen an old grey-haired hag (hexe) stand at the gates and fling down a piece of paper. A little boy whose imagination was alive with the tale of the steinbock, declared that her face was awful, and that she had only the, use of one foot. A man patted him on the shoulder, and gave him a gulp of wine, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bounced out of the room, banging the door, so that it shook and rattled as though it had listened to the conversation and fully sympathised with the old hag. ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... [gloomily] His going is a political defeat. I cannot keep these Life Worshippers: they all go. This is the greatest loss I have had since that Dutch painter went—a fellow who would paint a hag of 70 with as much enjoyment ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... 'The hag is out, on some preparation for your wedding festivities, I suppose,' said Ralph, preparing to depart. 'See here! I destroy the bond; we shall never ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... his brother Henry and often sighed for him) cared to risk a shot from his strong eyes. They were like blue stones, full of the cold glitter of their fire. It was at times like this, when a man stands naked confronting his purpose, that one saw the hag riding on the ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... door-way, we passed into a room about sixteen feet square and eight feet high. At one end was a stove in which a fire burned feebly, and close by a small kerosene lamp on a table dimly lighted the room. An old hag, who had lost the greater part of her nose, and whose face was half hidden by the huge frill of the cap she wore, sat rocking herself in a rickety chair by the table. The room was more than half in ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... head. The clasp of thy arms is highly gratifying to me. This is the eighth division of the day and, therefore, the hour of taking my food. For not having taken my food, O child of Kuru's race, I am so weak as to be unable to move. In addressing my solicitations to thee, great hag been my exertion. Rendered cheerless by it, O son, I had fainted. O perpetuator of Kuru's race, I think that receiving the touch of thy hand, which resembles nectar in its vivifying effects I have been ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... long, could ever be got by the French. Ferdinand defended Hanover; and wore out annually the big French Armies which were missioned thither, as in the spasm of an expiring last effort by this poor hag-ridden France,—at an expense to her, say, of 50,000 men per year. Which was good service on Ferdinand's part; but done less and less in the shining or universally ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in dark. Lady Macbeth as a child might have been like that—or Antigone with the doom on her, or perhaps Elektra. No, I expect Elektra took after her mother: red-haired girl, I fancy. But there you are. She was a lovely, solemn, deep-eyed, hag-ridden goose. Not a word to say—thought mostly of pudding. I found that out by supposing that she thought of me. Then I was piqued, and we parted. I suppose she's vast now, and glued to an upper ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... what you mean, and I can lay no claim to such a character. Any hag with golden eyes will always find me as ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... down-trodden and oppressed had built that Temple; and its highest adornment was the promise which Haggai's inspired lips had uttered: The Desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts (Hag. ii. 7). The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... he?" said the woman, with a sudden change of voice and manner, but her whine did not ring true. "The poor darlin', and only that Irish hag to care for him! Has he made a will?" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... time for us as American freemen to become free men in every sense the word implies, and exercise both our franchise and our brains in relegating this "Scarlet-Robed Hag of ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... who spent them in debauchery. There is perhaps no more popular Protestant picture than Salvator's "Witch of Endor," of which the subject was chosen by the painter simply because, under the names of Saul and the Sorceress, he could paint a captain of banditti, and a Neapolitan hag. ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... I have often remarked, that, as a poet may find an excellent rhyme by mere chance, so the germ of the best ideas is sometimes found in a word, or in some absurd resemblance like the present. That abominable hag, Sainte-Colombo, and the pretty Adrienne de Cardoville, go as well together, as a ring would suit a cat, or a necklace a fish. Well, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... gras in too, my chabo, bring the gras in too; there is room for the gras in my little stable." We entered a large court, across which we proceeded till we came to a wide doorway. "Go in, my child of Egypt," said the hag; "go in, that ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... blood Thy bosom and thy lips, old as I am. So, my attendance should to-morrow prove More tranquil here; for thou should'st leave, I judge, Ulysses' mansion, never to return. 30 Then answer'd Irus, kindling with disdain. Gods! with what volubility of speech The table-hunter prates, like an old hag Collied with chimney-smutch! but ah beware! For I intend thee mischief, and to dash With both hands ev'ry grinder from thy gums, As men untooth a pig pilf'ring the corn. Come—gird thee, that all here may view the strife— But how ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... great Cross and a holy one that will turn off my charms," said the old hag, with a sneer, "whatever it may do against yours. But on the back of his hand,—that will be a mark to know him by,—there is pricked a bear,—a white bear that he slew." And she told the story of the fairy bear; which Torfrida duly stored ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... that decrepit hag, who personated the righteous Sallasalsor, from Nechal, now stripped of the garments of hypocrisy, filled the eyes of the sages with terror and amazement. Her lean bones, wrapped round with yellow skin, appeared like the superstitious mummies of western Egypt. She was mounted on a dreadful monster. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... and Olaf's mother, having learnt all she wanted, bade her rower quit Thorbiorn; the little boat shot swiftly and suddenly away, leaving Thorbiorn with an uneasy sense of witchcraft. So disquieted did he feel that he would have pursued her and drowned "the old hag," as he called her, had he not been prevented by Brand the Strong, who had been helped in ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... that thoughtless persons deplore the sadness of the novel of observation and its resemblance to the life it represents. These people would have it jovial, smart, highly coloured, aiding them, in their base selfishness, to forget the hag-ridden existences of ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... slumber, that he never awoke when that venerable institution called the college woman—the hag whom the virtue of unerring dons insists o imposing as a servant on resident students—entered, made up the fire, swept up the room, and arranged the breakfast-table. It was only as she jogged his arm to ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... her womb, And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled Within unseen. Far less abhorred than these Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore; Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, called In secret, riding through the air she comes, Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon Eclipses at their charms. The other Shape— If shape it might ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... close lane as I pursu'd my journey, I spy'd a wrinkled Hag, with age grown double, Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself. Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall'd and red; Cold palsy shook her head; her hands seem'd withered; And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapped The tatter'd remnants of an old strip'd hanging, Which serv'd to keep her carcase ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... sure of, especially if as many false things are told about them, as are told about me; but when I was a tadpole in the pond, that old hag of an owl was still hooting away, in the treetops, scaring children, as in ages gone. She is older than I. Go and see her. If age makes wise, she ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... his bands. He goes through life, tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fury, and knows that the night will come and the inevitable hag with it. What a night, my God, it was! what a lonely rage and long agony—what a vulture that tore the heart of that giant! It is awful to think of the great sufferings of this great man. Through life he always seems alone, somehow. Goethe was so. I can't fancy Shakspeare otherwise. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... I was taken for the first time to a real play, and it was to that paradise of juvenile spectators, Astley's, where we saw a Highland horror called "Meg Murdoch, or the Mountain Hag," and a mythological after-piece called "Hyppolita, Queen of the Amazons," in which young ladies in very short and shining tunics, with burnished breastplates, helmets, spears, and shields, performed sundry warlike evolutions round her Majesty Hyppolita, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... off the black paint, and after a few more speeches and ceremonies, I was handed over to the hideous old hag, whose neck was still decorated with the two ears of my companion. To say that I would have preferred the torture would be saying too much, but that I loathed the creature to excess was certain. However, I ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... a severe step-wife—who keeps me, not at bed and board, but at desk and board, and is jealous of my morning aberrations. I cannot slip out to congratulate kinder unions. It is well she leaves me alone o' nights—the d-d Day-hag Business. She is even now peeping over me to see I am writing no Love Letters. I come, my dear—Where is the Indigo ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... had one warning just before he went up the postern stair that led to his Uncle Jasper's. The old hag who mixed the opium in the London garret where the choir master smoked the drug, had more than once tried to find out who her strange, gentlemanly visitor was. She had listened to his mutterings in his drunken slumber, and at length that day had followed him from London to Cloisterham, only to lose ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... some grand white angel, who had stepped down from a cathedral altar, as she stood erect and stately with a gravely pitying expression in her lovely eyes, confronting the sable-draped, withered, leering hag, who fixed upon her a steady look of the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... generally to express admiration of German bravery. It is our valiant stay-at-homes, our valiant clamorers for everybody else to enlist but themselves, who would have us fight like some drunken fish hag, shrieking and spitting while ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... it, you might leave the door open," grumbled the hag, who was of a sour temper. "Give me ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... of Beowulf, which in the fight with Grendel has analogies with the plainer kind of goblin story, rather alters its tone in the fight with Grendel's mother. There are parallels in Grettis Saga, and elsewhere, to encounters like this, with a hag or ogress under water; stories of this sort have been found no less credible than stories of haunting warlocks like Grendel. But this second story is not told in the same way as the first. It has more of the fashion and temper of mythical fable or romance, and less of matter of fact. More ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... cause for assurance, was in herself the best advertisement for her wares. Rachel was a fat old hag. Anne, prettily fair, little-boned, and deliciously fleshed, was neat and elegant. The impression one gets of her from all the records, even the most prejudiced against her, is that she was a very cuddlesome morsel indeed. She was, in addition, demonstrably clever. Such a man of talent ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... have picked out those that belong to the neighbourhood of Pickering, and by the letters placed after each name one can discover in the key given below the special arts practised by each "hag." ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... lay there, still panting, the moon gleamed down in momentary graciousness. In front, through the lashing rain, they could discern the hillocks that squat, hag-like, round the Devil's Bowl; and lying in its bosom, its white waters, usually so still, ploughed now into a ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... didst painfully remain A dozen years; within which space she died, And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island— Save for the son that she did litter here,[384-84] A freckled whelp, hag-born—not honour'd with A ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... both men there was a certain indefinable change which Falloden soon perceived. Both seemed, at times, to be dragging a weight too heavy for their youth. At other times, they were just like other men of their age; but Falloden, who knew them well, realised that they were both hag-ridden by remorse for what had happened in the summer. And indeed the attitude of a large part of the college towards them, and towards Falloden, when at rare intervals he showed himself there, could ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be more likened to "locust sawdust and wild honey." The first time I partook of this dainty I had unfortunately seen it in course of preparation, which somewhat marred the relish with which I might otherwise have eaten it. The confectioner was a toothless old hag, who mixed the ingredients in a wooden dish dirtier than anything I ever saw before, and filled with reindeer hairs, which, however, were not conspicuous when well mingled with the half-churned grass and moss. She extracted the oil from ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... that occur to me. There was a Spaniard who held a mother and daughter so under his control that he was on the way to seducing the latter (who was a mere girl) by his blandishments and supplications, combined with harshness and threats. The mother, who was an infernal old hag, he gained by offerings and bribes. But the good daughter after seven whole months of such infamous and continuous attack, would not yield; and finally that wretch, wearied by so long a siege and vanquished by the constancy of a weak girl, withdrew and left her in peace. Which is indeed ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... left me to come off as I may," thought Wayland, as he heard the hag shut the garden-door behind him. "But they shall not beat me, and they dare not murder me, for so little trespass, and by this fair twilight. Hang it, I will on—a brave general never thought of his retreat till he was defeated. I see ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... what it would be?' growled the old hag. 'From shelter we shall proceed to demand supper, and from supper money to take us on our way. Upon my word, if I could be sure of finding some one every day whose head was as soft as his heart, I wouldn't wish for a more agreeable life myself! But I have worked ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... now I stand at strains, As of ten thousand clanking chains; And once, methought, that overthrown, The welkin's oaks came whelming down; Upon my head up starts my hair: Why hunt abroad the hounds of air? What cursed hag is screeching high, Whilst ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... of the Hella festival. Then the minstrel catches sight of the lovely goose-girl, and through the prophetic gift possessed by poets he recognizes in her a rightly born princess for his people. By the power of his art he is enabled to put aside the threatening spells of the witch and compel the hag to deliver the maiden into his care. He persuades her to break the enchantment which had held her bound hitherto and defy ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... about as large as a railway carriage, drove up and forced my frail cab down the street. I had to wait, humiliated and helpless, the taximeter of my cab industriously adding penny to penny, while that offensive hag installed herself, with the help of the maid, the porter and two page-boys, in her enormous vehicle. I should not have minded had she been young and pretty. If she had been young and pretty she would have had the right to be rude and domineering. But she was neither young nor pretty. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... intently, struck him thereon a violent blow with her fist, which started it to bleeding afresh, and, in spite of himself, caused Algernon to utter a sharp cry of pain, at which all laughed heartily. Thinking doubtless this species of amusement as interesting as any, the old hag was on the point of repeating the blow, when Girty arrested it, by saying something to her in the Indian tongue, and all three turned aside, as if to consult together, leaving our hero standing ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... at the Oversea News Service, a concern paid for by Krupps. Mr. ——, in addition, gains money by getting permits for goods to go out of Germany, capitalising his "pull" as it were. Some of the money for their dirty work is given them by Roselius of Bremen, proprietor of the "Caffee Hag." ——, a traitor, who also writes against the President, also works ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... the hag, dragging her up rudely by one of those delicate hands, fit for no harsher labor than that of weaving the flowers which made her pleasure or her trade; 'stuff! these fine scruples are ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... starting as from an uneasy dream, he looked on Life with wide-open eyes and soul that understood. He found her far less fair than in the heydey of his youth, when he reveled in her voluptuous charms and loved her well. Her face was hard and stern as that of some hag from Hell; the sunlight had faded from her hair, the cestus of red roses become a poisonous serpent, her fragrant breath a consuming flame, her robe of glory, a sackcloth suit, begrimed with ashes, torn by thorns and stained with blood. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Testament (Acts viii. 9; xiii. 8), and Posthumus in Cymbeline: but when the medieval Latin 'sortiarius' (not 'sortitor' as in Richardson), supplied another word, the French 'sorcier', and thus our English 'sorcerer' (originally the "caster of lots"), then 'witch' gradually was confined to the hag, or female practiser of these arts, while 'sorcerer' was applied to ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... in the meat under her garments, but where she had got it was a mystery. At length I began to doze. There were many sounds in my ear as of thunder and wind, the pigs grunting at the door, and the crackling of the fire in the hag's room. But by and by other sounds seemed to mingle with these—voices of several persons talking, laughing, and singing. At length I became wide awake, and found that these voices proceeded from the next room. Some person was ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... as he put on his great coat, "it is a curious fact that, with all his incredulity, he is exceedingly superstitious. You can hardly believe how troubled he is about some gibberish of that old hag that sets charms for lame horses, etc. I'm not at all sure but that she set charms in the other ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... our own sensual eye that gives evil the appearance of good, and out of a crooked hag makes a bewitching siren. The reason enlightened by the grace of God sees it as it truly is, full of stench and corruption.[86] It is this office of reason which Dante undertakes to perform, by divine commission, in the Inferno. There can be no doubt that he looked upon himself ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... should get to Rickwell by the Gravesend line, and she, not thinking any harm of him and anxious to see Denham and learn the truth about her dead father, agreed. He took her down and drugged her in the train. As an invalid she was taken on board The Dark Horse and confined to her cabin. A hag called Mrs. Johns attended to her. I know the old wretch. A regular bad one; but devoted to Morley, who got her out of ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... yard there was a conversation going on about the mare; the man who attended to the horses, Darling included, insisted that the latter was "hag-rid;" for when he had arrived at the stable that morning she was in such a state as no horse could be in by honest riding. It was true that the doctor had stabled her himself when he got home, so that she ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... ever woman looked as if she had come from a witch's Sabbath, if ever girl, scarce more than child, walked as if she had plucked the fruit of the Tree and savoured it bitter, it was the girl before him. Despair—it seemed to him—rode her like a hag. Dejection, fear, misery, were in her whole bearing. Her eyes looked out from black hollows, her cheeks were pallid, her mouth was nerveless. Three sleepless nights, he thought, could not have changed a woman thus—no, nor thrice three; and ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman |
